Open Source

Is Crypton Super? As A Development Framework?

SpiderOak has released a "zero-knowledge" open-source application development framework called Crypton. In terms of usage, Crypton is designed to allow programmers to build cryptographically-secure cloud applications with its Privacy-as-a-Platform tools.

It is essentially a method for creating privacy-oriented applications that can utilize any backend storage provider.

Following a series of audits by security researchers at Least Authority and Leviathan, and subsequent vulnerability fixes, SpiderOak has officially released the open-source framework to the developer community.

SpiderOak CEO Ethan Oberman has said that currently, most applications that use cloud technologies sacrifice privacy because plaintext information remains viewable on the server. "Crypton represents a new path forward by empowering application developers to realize 'zero-knowledge' privacy cloud environments out-of-the-box. By transparently handling the complicated cryptography layers through the application framework, Crypton makes it easy for developers to focus on domain-specific challenges instead of worrying about how to administer a privacy-oriented solution after the fact."

Along with the public audits, SpiderOak is openly tracking all of the fixes on Crypton's GitHub page for anyone to review. The company hopes this type of open development and audit process will set a new bar for how these processes work moving forward.

SpiderOak provides a cloud backup, sync, and sharing environment that is 100% private. The company claims that its 'Zero-Knowledge' Privacy Standard ensures "absolute confidentiality" between all data in all use cases on all devices.

The company lists the following checkpoints on its blog as a list to consider when building cryptographic products that developers can use:

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